Just passed CCNA....now CCNP Voice?

IPDirect

Since I got started with Cisco last year, I've known I've wanted to go into Voice/Video. I just passed my CCNA and am currently applying for my first job. I'm not sure what to do next.

1. CCNA-->CCNP R&S-->CCNP Voice-->Telepresence
2. CCNA-->CCNP Voice-->Telepresence
3. CCNA-->CCNP SWITCH exam-->CCNP Voice--->Telepresence

Those of you who went straight into voice...do you feel like there are holes in your knowledge by not doing CCNP R&S? Did it hinder you in the job search? Are you glad you didn't bother wasting 8-12months studying for CCNP R&S? Thanks in advance!

cisco_certs

I dont have a ccvp but in my experience a CCVP should take CCNP so they understand the whole view of the network.

How can you solve a problem if you dont know R&S? Like one of the engineers here told me, you need to have a 4 dimensional view to understand networking.

If theres a problem, you can troubleshoot by thinking is it the switch? router? firewall? voip gateways and gatekeepers?

How will you understand that if you dont have CCNP and CCNP-sec?

Dont be that guy that everybody laughs about because your a CCVP but have no idea about Router and switches.
Goodluck

tokhss

"Dont be that guy that everybody laughs about because your a CCVP but have no idea about Router and switches"

I disagree. CCVP requires you to have a solid understanding about R/S, will it be as detailed as CCNP R/S, no.

Unless your the only guy in the company then i agree, having a strong understanding about R/S is mandatory.

Normally, large corps and even medium size companies have divisions that handle certain key segments of the network. you may have a team dedicated to voice, period. Another team handling the core switching, and another team handling the transmission equipment and another team handling the routers.. so, while having the R/S certs and know how is always great to have, its not mandatory depending on the role you will have in the company.

will you be a more desirable candidate having ccnp and ccvp? I believe so, yes.

Personally, I dont have my security cert, nor do i have my CCNP. Once you get your foot in the company, the decisions already made about your skills. Its only up to you to take the natural abilities you have and begin to specialize them for the company that just hired you. If you need to catch up on wireless, design, etc.. then you better do it.

Every company that i worked for gives you a certain amount of time to get your feet wet and get up to speed on their own internal ways. this will be your time to really show them how quickly you can learn and get on top of it.

Good Luck.

chmorin

A CCNP:Voice is a completely separate scope of knowledge when compared to Routing and Switching. You will be dealing strongly with Cisco Servers, Phones, and Gateway configurations of PRI's and things like that. If you are lucky enough to work in an enviornment where you don't have to be held responcibile for the routing and switching on top of the voice infrastructure, then it would probably be okay to jump straight to voice. However, knowing how to set up a server and not the routing/switching behind it just seems silly. I have read the SWITCH and BSCI (I need to get the ROUTE book...) books but have not really studied for the test so I can have a working knowledge of the technology behind what I enjoy to configure and mess with. You could even say I'm studying for both CCNP and CCNP:V at the same time. If you are in an enviornment where you want to balance yourself, I don't really see a problem with doing it this way.

shodown

My first real job out the navy was doing 2nd level VOIP support. I had my CCNA, but only military NOC knowledge of networks. There were several holes in my game. Real life spanning tree issues, one way audio, Site to Site VPN's and so on for remote users. You really have to know some of it all for VOIP. There are a lot of VOIP engineers out here who don't know solid routing. I have worked on several networks with such engineers who have 100's of static routes in routers cause they don't understand how OSPF, or EIGRP work, then they open a trouble ticket cause the packets arent flowing correctly. I could go on and on, but make sure your R/S game is solid to be good at voip, but i will say if you can land a VOIP job jump all on it and just know u got a lot of backfilling to do.

mikej412

cisco_certs wrote: »

Dont be that guy that everybody laughs about because your a CCVP but have no idea about Router and switches.
Goodluck

Actually our CCVPs laugh all the way to the bank. Good CCVPs are so rare that we pay them better than a CCIE R&S -- and will happily hire them their own CCNP assistant.

R&S skill could make one highly qualified CCVP preferable over another highly qualified CCVP -- but both will easily find Voice jobs.

tomaifauchai

Well, i would do the CVOICE 6 exam prior to february 28th to get at least your CCNA Voice! And then, maybe doing the ROUTE exam and QoS at least would certainly help for the balance of your CCNP Voice!

Flyingput

If I were you, I'd go after CCVP directly. It's still hot in the job market. Back it up with working experience (better) or at least labs. Paper certificates are useless.

Flyingput

Anecdote:

I am in our support team (network/voice/security). 99% of our Cisco UC tickets are solved in a "pure" voice fashion, which means "we haven't touched QoS, routing tables, VLANs....etc for a long time". Maybe we are just lucky. (Knock on the wood)

Usually admins are still afraid of routers/switches CLI interfaces. But CallManager/Unity/Unity Connection/IPCC.... all are GUI, right :mrgreen Let's click mouse to make some changes. Oh Sh!t, what did I do? Call our vendor!

cisco_certs wrote: »

I dont have a ccvp but in my experience a CCVP should take CCNP so they understand the whole view of the network.

How can you solve a problem if you dont know R&S? Like one of the engineers here told me, you need to have a 4 dimensional view to understand networking.

If theres a problem, you can troubleshoot by thinking is it the switch? router? firewall? voip gateways and gatekeepers?

How will you understand that if you dont have CCNP and CCNP-sec?

Dont be that guy that everybody laughs about because your a CCVP but have no idea about Router and switches.
Goodluck

Flyingput

I planned to read some CCNP docs. But after the 1st month, I steered my focus to CallCenter stuffs. MUCH harder to find one of them from the market.

mikej412 wrote: »

Actually our CCVPs laugh all the way to the bank. Good CCVPs are so rare that we pay them better than a CCIE R&S -- and will happily hire them their own CCNP assistant.

R&S skill could make one highly qualified CCVP preferable over another highly qualified CCVP -- but both will easily find Voice jobs.